Information about users and groups reside in a user registry. authenticates a user and retrieves information about users and groups to perform security-related functions, including authentication and authorization.
With WebSphere Application Server, a user registry is used for:
The users and groups and security role mapping information is used by the configured authorization engine to perform access control decisions.
WebSphere Application Server provides several implementations to support multiple types of operating system base user registries. You can use the custom Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) feature to support any LDAP server by setting up the correct configuration user and group filters. However, support is not extended to these custom LDAP servers because many configuration possibilities exist.
In addition to Local operating system (local OS) and LDAP registries, WebSphere Application Server also provides a plug-in that supports any user registry by using the custom registry feature, which also is referred to as a custom user registry. The custom registry feature supports any user registry that is not implemented by WebSphere Application Server. You can use any user registry that is used in the product environment by implementing the UserRegistry interface interface.
The UserRegistry interface is very helpful in situations where the current user and group information exists in some other format, such as a database, and cannot move to Local OS or LDAP. In such a case, implement the UserRegistry interface so that WebSphere Application Server can use the existing registry for all of the security-related operations. Building a custom registry is a software implementation effort. The implementation does not depend on other WebSphere Application Server resources, for example, data sources, for its operation.
Although WebSphere Application Server supports different types of user registries, only one user registry can be active. This active registry is shared by all of the product server processes.
Sub-topics
Local operating system user registries
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol user registries
Custom user registries
Related concepts
Tivoli Access Manager integration as the JACC provider
Authentication mechanisms